Today’s post is on Wicked Autumn by G.M. Malliet. It is 297 pages long and is published by St. Martin’s Press. It is the first in her Max Tudor series. The cover is dark blue with a tree in the foreground and the village behind it. The intended reader is someone who likes mysteries a little harder than the average cozy. There is mild foul language, no sex, and mild violence in this book. The story is told from third person close of the main character. There Be Spoilers Ahead.
From the back of the book- What could be more dangerous than cozy village life in the English countryside?
Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold's in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. Now he has found a measure of peace among urban escapees and yoga practitioners, artists and crafters and New Agers. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women's Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max's training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play.
Max has ministered to the community long enough to be familiar with the tangled alliances and animosities among the residents, but this tragedy surprises and confounds him. It is impossible to believe anyone in his lovely village capable of the crime, and yet given the victim, he must acknowledge that almost everyone had probably fantasized about killing Wanda Batton-Smythe.
As the investigation unfolds, Max becomes more intricately involved. Memories he'd rather not revisit are stirred, evoking the demons from the past which led him to Nether Monkslip.
Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold's in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. Now he has found a measure of peace among urban escapees and yoga practitioners, artists and crafters and New Agers. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women's Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max's training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play.
Max has ministered to the community long enough to be familiar with the tangled alliances and animosities among the residents, but this tragedy surprises and confounds him. It is impossible to believe anyone in his lovely village capable of the crime, and yet given the victim, he must acknowledge that almost everyone had probably fantasized about killing Wanda Batton-Smythe.
As the investigation unfolds, Max becomes more intricately involved. Memories he'd rather not revisit are stirred, evoking the demons from the past which led him to Nether Monkslip.
Review- A good start to a different kind of want-to-be cozy mystery. This book wants to appeal to the readers of cozy mysteries so it has some of the highlights of one: a country village, Max Tudor is a vicar, and the murders are not gruesomely described. But it is not a cozy mystery. It is more main stream than that with Tudor having an edgy past as a MI5 agent, while the murders are not heavily described there is more detail than any other cozy I have read, and the villain is grayer. I did enjoy the mystery and the setting but I was expecting a cozy and that is not what I got. I think that this series would be better if it would stop trying to be a cozy and just be a ‘normal’ mystery. The mystery itself was fine and the how the plot unfolded was interesting but whenever anything non-cozy would happen I would be taken aback. It is a fine mystery but it is not a cozy mystery.
I give this a Three out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library
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